Name

It is derived from the very first word wadh-dhariyat, which implies
that it is a Surah which begins with the word adh-dhariyat.

Period of Revelation

The subject matter and the style clearly show that it was sent down in
the period when although the Holy Prophet's invitation was being
resisted and opposed with denial and ridicule and false accusations
stubbornly, persecution had not yet started. Therefore, this Surah also
seems to have been revealed in the same period in which the Surah
Qaf was revealed.

Subject Matter and Topics

The Surah mostly deals with the Hereafter, and in the end it presents
the invitation to Tauhid. In addition, the people have also been
warned that refusal to accept the message of the Prophets and
persistence in the concepts and creeds of ignorance have proved to be
disastrous for those nations themselves which have adopted this
attitude and way of life in the past.

About the Hereafter what this
Surah presents in short but pithy sentences is this: The people's
different and conflicting beliefs about the end of human life are
themselves an express proof that none of these beliefs and creeds is
based on knowledge; everyone by himself has formed an ideology on the
basis of conjecture and made the same his creed. Someone thought that
there would be no life-after-death; someone believed in the life-
after-death, but in the form of the transmigration of souls someone
believed in the life hereafter and the meting out of the rewards and
punishments but invented different sorts of props and supports to
escape retribution. About a question of such vital and fundamental
importance a wrong view of which renders man's whole life-work wrong
and waste and ruins his future for ever, it would be a disastrous
folly to build an ideology only on the basis of speculation and
conjecture, without knowledge. It would mean that man should remain
involved in a grave misunderstanding, pass his whole life in the
heedlessness of error, and after death should suddenly meet with a
situation for which he had made no preparation at all. There is only
one way of forming the right opinion about such a question, and it is
this: Man should seriously ponder over the knowledge about the
Hereafter that the Prophet of Allah is conveying to him from Him, and
should study carefully the system of the earth and heavens and his own
existence: and should see whether the evidence of that knowledge's
being sound and correct is afforded by everything around him or not.
In this regard, the arrangement of the wind and rain, the structure of
the earth and the creatures found on it, man's own self, the creation
of the heavens and of everything in the world in the form of pairs
have been presented as evidence of the Hereafter, and instances have
been cited from human history to show that the temper of the empire of
the Universe requires that the law of retribution must operate here.

After this, giving the invitation to Tauhid briefly, it has been said :
"Your Creator has not created you for the service of others but for
His own service. He is not like your false gods, which receive
sustenance from you and godhead of which cannot function without your
help, but He is a God Who is the Sustainer of all, Who does not stand
in need of sustenance from anyone and Whose Godhead is functioning by
His own power and might.

In this very connection, it has also been
stated that whenever the Prophets of Allah have been opposed and
resisted, they have not been opposed and resisted on the basis of any
rational ground but on the basis of the same obduracy and stubbornness
and false pride that is being shown against the Prophet Muhammad
(peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), and there is no other
motive for it than rebellion and arrogance. Then the Holy Prophet has
been instructed not to bother about the rebels but to go on performing
his mission of invitation and admonition, for it is useful and
beneficial for the believers although it may not be so for the other
people. As for the wicked people who still persist in their rebellion,
they should know that their predecessors who followed the same way of
life, have already received their shares of the punishment, and these
people's share of the punishment has been made ready for them.